THE JEWISH CONCEPT OF "THE"
MESSIAH....WHY CAN'T THE JEWS AND THE CHRISTIANS AGREE?

I believe
with perfect faith in the coming of the moshiach, and though he may tarry,
still I await him every day. - Principle 12 of Rambam's 13 Principles of
Faith

CONFUSION OVER "THE"
MESSIAH...WHY CAN'T JEWS AND CHRISTIANS AGREE?

The
problem today remains unchanged from the time the prophet Hosea expressed
it 2,500 years ago: "My people are perishing through ignorance."

Oh by the way the "ignorance" of
which I speak is an ignorance and fluent understanding of the Jewish
Scriptures and what they originally taught concerning "the"
Messiah "before" they were corrupted in the Greek translation of
the Hebrew texts by the Essenes of Alexandria, Egypt, in 200 B.C.E. But we
will get to that in a moment.

Few issues are more foundational to the
Christian faith than the belief that Jesus is the Messiah as Christians
maintain is predicted by Old Testament Jewish prophets. Yet
many of the prophecies that are said to predict Jesus' life, death, and
resurrection, when read in their Old Testament context, are not as clear
as we might expect; especially when compared between the Jewish Masoretic
Jewish texts and the Greek translations taken from them.
In fact, it's easy to see why unbelievers are often skeptical.

Answer for yourself:
Why aren't the prophecies more obvious? And why in some cases does
the New Testament claim a fulfillment where no prediction is even in view?

Before answering these questions, let's look
at claims made by Christians, and the kind of questions thoughtful
skeptics ask.

CHRISTIAN
CLAIMSCONCERNING JESUS AND "THE" MESSIAH OF ISRAEL

In Evidence That Demands A Verdict,
Christian apologist Josh McDowell states, "The Old Testament contains
over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus." He
believes this "establishes the fact of God, authenticates the deity
of Jesus, and [proves] the inspiration of the Bible." He lists 61
specific messianic prophecies and shows how they were fulfilled hundreds
of years after they were spoken. Then he quotes from Peter Stoner's book
Science Speaks, which says that according to scientifically
accepted laws of probability, the odds against just eight of the
prophecies being fulfilled are one chance in 1017 (pp.150-175).

Answer for yourself:
Are McDowell's facts and logic sound?

Those who already believe in the traditional
Christian dogma and doctrines concerning Jesus will probably say his facts
are unarguable. They know, for example, that Luke 24 describes two
occasions when the resurrected Christ "opened the minds" of his
followers to understand that Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms had spoken of
his death, resurrection, and salvation he would provide through them (Lk.
24:25-27,44-49). Believers in Jesus are convinced that he was telling the
truth when he said that the Old Testament was speaking about him (Jn.
5:39). These claims, however, do not greatly impress skeptics.
Many Jewish people, to whom
the revelation from God was given in the first place, believe that the
prophets foresaw a different kind of Messiah.They see prophets pointing
to a coming Deliverer who would rescue Israel from her enemies and
establish Jerusalem as the capital of a world government (Isa. 2:1-3).
Since Jesus did not do this, they wonder how he could be the Messiah. Yet
Christians believe that among the prophecies of a coming world leader are
predictions with another view of Messiah. He will be despised and rejected
(Isa. 53:3). He will die for our sin (Isa. 53:6). He will be "cut off"
before the destruction of Jerusalem and her temple (Dan. 9:24-27). He will
live after dying (Isa. 53:10). He will justify many (Isa. 53:11). He will
be a light to the Gentiles (Isa. 49:6). Christians believe that these
prophecies present the Messiah as suffering, dying, and rising from death
to provide salvation from sin's penalty before restoring Israel and ruling
the earth from Jerusalem.

Answer for yourself:
Is this claim supported by facts? Skeptical people have many questions.

THE SKEPTICS' QUESTIONS

Many skeptics doubt that Jesus fulfilled even
one prophecy. They argue that the Christians' Old Testament is a
purposeful mistranslation and misapplication of the "original"
Jewish Scriptures. They go further and state that Christians are not only
reading and quoting these purposefully mistranslated Jewish Scriptures
without prior knowledge but often even quote Old Testament passages out of
context, mindlessly misinterpreting them, or even dishonestly changing
them to fit their purposes. I have found over the last 20 yeas of my
Pastorate and study that the vast majority of Christians are not aware of
these "alterations" in their Christian Bibles but majority of
the Jewish people, let alone their scholars are.

As
individuals seeking to know and do the will of the Almighty, and being now
aware of these purposeful mistranslations of the Jewish Scriptures, then
you are confronted with a significant question right from the beginning:
is the New Testament and it's teachings concerning Jesus as "the"
Messiah true and is the New Testament really the Word of God?

Christian leaders have assured us that the
answer is "yes;" perhaps you have even had some emotional
experiences which seem to validate your leaders' assurances. As you
hopefully know, though, true faith is based neither upon trust in men (Ps,
146:3), nor even upon occurrences of the supernatural (Deut. 13). And so,
the question remains, your eternal salvation contingent upon the answer.

Proving whether something is true or not is
called apologetics. This word is derived from the Greek word apologia,
which means to defend.

Answer for yourself:
Can the Christian's claims concerning "Jesus as 'the' Messiah"
and their doctrines concerning him and his salvific death be defended or
are the Jew's counter arguments and denial of such Christian dogma more
correct?

THE DANGER OF "HERESY" AND "APOSTASY"
IF WE ARE WRONG

In order to come to "the" truth
concerning "the" Messiah as taught by Moses and the Prophets it
may be helpful to understand a word that is often used by both sides of
the Messianic debate concerning Jesus; that word being "heresy."
First of all it will be helpful to accurately define the word "heresy"
as it is used quite often by those who fail to understand what it means. "Heresy"
comes from the Greek (hairesis) meaning, "a choice; a taking for
oneself; a sect or school of philosophy". Hence, in the Bible, it
means,

Answer for yourself:
Are you aware that if your religious beliefs system concerning "the"
Messiah is incorrect then your worship, if you are a Christian, could be
idolatrous and you could be accepting a false atonement? Likewise, of
course, if you are Jewish and refuse to accept the Christian doctrines
concerning Jesus as "the" Messiah then Christians maintain that
you are without and have rejected the only "atonement?" So what
is the truth in these regards?

The words "heresy" and "apostasy"
are two of the most often used words to refer to doctrinal error and
practice in the Church Age. Any Christian or Jew is subject to error in
his thinking about spiritual matters. The presence of the sin nature in
the soul guarantees that we will have a constant battle to distinguish
between human and divine viewpoints. Error
may be the result of ignorance, of a lack of doctrine, of prior
indoctrination of untruth, or of deliberately adopting some point of view
or activity. The open-minded Christian or Jew who is positive to the
teaching of the Bible and who is willing for the LORD YHVH to deal with
him in doctrinal matters will find that his erroneous ideas will be, upon
serious unbiased study, replaced with the truth of the Word of God if he
searches for "the" truth with all his mind and heart. This
will require no small amount of serious study. As he grows in his
spiritual maturity, he will avoid heresy and any deliberate apostasy.
Heresy itself, which is the
result of making a wrong choice among competing ideas, may have been
entered into as a result of being deceived. Heresy becomes apostasy,
however, whenever a person deliberately decides to reject Bible truth when
shown it and maintain and promote false ideas while previously
encountering such a knowledge of "the" truth.

Answer for yourself:
So what is the truth concerning the "Messianic Idea" in
the Jewish Scriptures? Are the Jewish people and their scholars right or
are the Christians and their scholars right?

BET EMET'S PURPOSE IN THIS WEBSITE

This
website is devoted to help Jews as well as Christians avoid error, heresy,
or apostasy by teaching "in depth" the concepts and truths
concerning "the" Messiah as taught from the Jewish Scriptures
and the "true" Masoretic text.This
is complicated to say the least because of the "two" different
versions of the Old Testament that exists today. It
may be news to you but the Christian Old Testaments are completely
different from the Jewish Bible when it comes to "Messianic prophecy."
Our
quest must begin there for surely you understand that one's belief in "the"
Messiah must be determined by the "authentic texts" that have
not been purposefully altered to reflect ideas not given to the Jewish
people by God. Sadly it can be proved beyond any doubt that such
falsification of the Jewish Bible has occurred when translations were made
into the Greek language. This serious problem is only made worse by the
realization that "ALL" the quotes in the New Testament
concerning "the" Messiah and Jesus are taken from these
corrupted Greek texts.

Because of these textual differences between
the Jewish Bible and the Christian Old Testament with it's subsequent New
Testament quotes as taken from the falsified Greek translation there is
probably no greater area of "dissension arising from diversity of
opinion" as in the area of "the" Messiah. The Jewish people
and Jewish scholars maintain that the true Jewish Messiah has not come
while at the same time the Christians maintain that "the" true
Jewish Messiah has come in the form of Jesus of Nazareth.

Answer for yourself:What is the truth concerning "the"
Messiah according to the Jewish Scriptures?

Judaism and Christianity are two separate
faith systems. There are radical differences between Judaism and
Christianity.

What
makes Christianity Christian is its belief in "Jesus Christ: Son of
God, God incarnate."

What
makes the Christian movement called "Messianic Judaism"
Christian is its belief in "Jesus Christ: Son of God, God
incarnate.

What
makes Judaism Jewish is Israel's covenantal relationship with God
expressed through God's instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai, both
Written and Oral.

Judaism
and Christianity are entirely different and essentially unrelated
religions. The two religions bear different messages and distinctive
meanings, each possessing completely different beliefs concerning "the"
Messiah and atonement. The Christian concept of God is not the Jewish
concept of God; in essence, the Christian's God is not God of the Jewish
Bible. One cannot replace Torah with Jesus and still have a reason for
Judaism or truthfully call the new entity "the Old Testament
fulfilled and the fulfillment of Judaism." The respective adherents
to Judaism and Christianity are part of distinct faith communities.

THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM...WHAT IS "THE"
TRUTH ABOUT THE MESSIAH AND JESUS?

Belief in the
eventual coming of the moshiach is a basic and fundamental part of
traditional Judaism. It is part of Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith, the
minimum requirements of Jewish belief. In the Shemoneh
Esrei prayer, recited three times daily, the Jewish people pray for all of
the elements of the coming of the moshiach: ingathering of the exiles;
restoration of the religious courts of justice; an end of wickedness, sin
and heresy; reward to the righteous; rebuilding of Jerusalem; restoration
of the line of King David; and restoration of Temple service.

Yet there is diversity concerning the Messiah in Judaism. Modern
scholars suggest that the messianic concept was introduced later in the
history of Judaism, during the age of the prophets. They note that the
messianic concept is not mentioned anywhere in the Torah (the first five
books of the Bible). However, traditional Judaism maintains that the
messianic idea has always been a part of Judaism. The moshiach is not
mentioned explicitly in the Torah, because the Torah was written in terms
that all people could understand, and the abstract concept of a distant,
spiritual, future reward was beyond the comprehension of some people.
However, the Torah contains several references to "the End of Days"
(achareet ha-yameem), which is the time of the moshiach; thus, the concept
of moshiach was known in the most ancient times.

The term "moshiach" or "messiah" literally means
"the anointed one," and refers to the ancient practice of
anointing kings with oil when they took the throne. The moshiach is the
one who will be anointed as king in the End of Days. The word "moshiach"
does not mean "savior." The notion of an innocent, divine or
semi-divine being who will sacrifice himself to save mankind from the
consequences of their own sin is a purely Christian concept that has no
basis in Jewish thought. Unfortunately, this Christian concept has become
so deeply ingrained in the English word "messiah" that this
English word can no longer be used to refer to the Jewish concept.

In his monumental work Mishneh Torah, Maimonides (1135-1204)
spelled out the fundamental Jewish concept of the messiah as it was handed
down to the Jewish people through Divine revelation, generation after
generation, from the time of the prophets. In his concise and lucid
manner, the great Jewish philosopher and jurist herewith presents us with
a clear picture of the promise which God made to the Jewish people. These
concepts must be compared with Christianity's teachings to ascertain if
the Christians are being taught about "the" Jewish Messiah or if
they have been taught concerning a "different Messiah" which has
more in common with the Gentile's solar and astral godmen.

Jews do not believe
that Jesus was the moshiach. Assuming that he existed, and assuming that
the Christian scriptures are accurate in describing him (both matters that
are debatable and what this website will investigate), the Jews maintain
that he simply did not fulfill the mission of the moshiach as it is
described in the biblical passages cited in the Jewish Scriptures (the
following passages in the Jewish scriptures are the ones that Jews
consider to be messianic in nature or relating to the end of days. These
are the ones that we rely upon in developing our messianic concept: Isaiah
2, 11, 42; 59:20 Jeremiah 23, 30, 33; 48:47; 49:39 Ezekiel 38:16, Hosea
3:4-3:5, Micah 4, Zephaniah 3:9, Zechariah 14:9, Daniel 10:14). The Jesus
of the New Testament did not do any of the things that the Hebrew
Scriptures said the messiah would do.

Throughout Jewish history, there have been many people who have
claimed to be the moshiach, or whose followers have claimed that they were
the moshiach: Shimeon Bar Kochba, Shabbatai Tzvi, Jesus, and many others
too numerous to name. But
all of these people died, including Jesus, without fulfilling the mission
of the moshiach; therefore, according to the Jewish people, none of them
were the moshiach. The moshiach and the Olam Ha-Ba lie
in the future, not in the past.

SO WHAT IS THE TRUTH..WHO IS RIGHT..THE JEWS
OR THE CHRISTIANS?

I wish I could say that there is a simple answer to this question
but after 20 years of intense scholarly study I can assure you that there
is not. I will say that there is "truth" in both camps yet a
significant amount of error in the Christian camp which the Jews' cannot
boast. It is my prayer that
your study of the facts as presented in this website will help you come to
see these long hidden "truths" about "the" Messiah for
yourself as they will have a dramatic impact upon one's worship, idolatry,
and atonement. It is to these troublesome issues we turn
in this website in order to ascertain and arrive at the truth about "the
Messiah" of Israel. In coming to such "truth" it will be
necessary to examine in detail a multitude of issues concerning the
doctrine of the Messiah. We will cover areas in this website dealing with
various topics like:

The
Corruption Of The Hebrew Scriptures By The Alexandrian, Greek, And Roman
Translators

The
True Messianic Scriptures As Found Only In The Hebrew Scriptures

The
Purposeful Mistranslation And Misquotation And Outright "Invention"
Of The Hebrew Scriptures As They Exist In The New Testament

The
Failure Of The Messianic Prophecies As Found In The Hebrew Scriptures To
Be Fulfilled Historically

Isaiah 53 As It Exists In The
Hebrew Scriptures When Compared To Later Mistranslations In The Greek
and Related Texts

Falsified
And Forged Messianic prophecies

The
Role Of Atonement And Any Possible Connection To "The" Messiah

The
Second Coming Of "The" Messiah If Any

Does
The Jewish Scriptures Teach A Crucified Messiah?

Pagan
Messiahs And Their Crucified Sun-godmen...Were These Metaphysical
Concepts Applied To Jesus Of Rome's Making In The New Testament?

The
Essenes And Their Angel Messiah...Was This A Deviation From The Biblical
Messiah?

As you can tell we will address all pertinent issues concerning "the"
Messiah for both the Jew and the Christian. Once having done so as
unbiasedly as possible then one can rest assured that he has come to "the"
truth concerning "the" Messiah of Israel.

In our CD of all out websites contained on one disk we provide a "study
plan" for the student and give detailed
instructions as how to study these websites "in order" to
faciliatate one's study. Please inquire for the CD for such through study
will take you some time if you ever hope of cracking the "Jesus
Puzzle" and coming to the answer of the question: "Who do men
say I am?".